Telecom buzz on ‘one licence’

January 8, 2018

The Narendra Modi government is looking to shake the foundations of the telecom industry by floating the idea of One Nation, One Licence for services – which will effectively unite and consolidate the fragmented world of 23 telecom circles that India has lived with since 1994 when private players were first allowed to launch cellular mobile services under a duopoly in service areas that were broadly co-terminous with provinces and the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Chennai.

On Wednesday, the telecom regulator floated a consultation paper that aims to hash out strategies that will propel India into the league of the top 50 nations in terms of network readiness, communications systems and services.

The paper outlines some very big objectives: attract an investment of $100 billion in the telecom sector, attain an average speed of 20 Mbps for wireless and 50 Mbps for wireline internet connectivity. (Source: Telegraph )